Happy New Year …
This is just a quick one to wish you Happy New Year.
I can’t say much this week. Christmas II is about to start, in Scotland, so I will be heading up there tomorrow and I’m busy packing and sorting stuff out before we go. There is an absolute craptonne I want to talk about regarding Christmas I at Mum’s. How it went (well, I think) and about being a carer; the sense of responsibility, the good bits, the bad bits and why God seems to think it’s his moral duty to ensure that I have to wipe somebody somewhere’s arse at regular intervals from now until I die. More on that story … next week.
In the meantime, one of those terribly strange conundrums has cropped up. Suddenly, yesterday, 439 people in the USA and 1 Canadian downloaded Small Beginnings, for free off Amazon, along with another 127 so far, today – I can’t tell where they’re from yet but I’m guessing USA again.
That’s pretty impressive. I doubt I’d get much more interest in the States than that if I’d scored the mother of all promotions that is a bookbub. It really is like the American bit of a Book Bub Featured Deal without the other countries on top. It’s bizarre. But also good. OK so the USA is the country with the lowest read through rate, but I’m still delighted. After all, I should be good for 10 sales on the next book if I get the usual 2% read through rate, only a fraction of those folks will read the book, you see. I’m guessing they were all the USA as well, possibly with another Canadian in there.
Also, so far, the Christmas Easter Egg (Nog) – The Last Word, has received 253 downloads so I’m pleased about that, too. It was only 8% of the mailing list people so I’ve resent it to them for next week with a ‘just in case you forgot this’ kind of message because it’s a busy time and some of them may have done.
While I was doing that, it crossed my mind that I haven’t checked my mailing list for non-openers recently. Having done so I discover there are over 800 and I have not checked or sent a do-you-want-to-stay email for over a year. Oops. So I’ve sent the, ‘Wanna unsubscribe?’ email letting them know I’m going to delete them and giving them a button to click if they want to stay.
The joy of that technique is that the people on that list are gathered with an equation that, essentially, says, ‘show me everyone who hasn’t opened or clicked an email in the last year, who isn’t on x, y or z list’. Then of course, anyone who clicks will automatically disappear because they’ll have opened something in the last six months. Mwahahahrgh! Cunning eh?
Right, it’s late now and I have to go to bed but before I do, I may as well remind you about the K’Barthan Not Christmas story as well. Yes, The Last Word is still available to read. AND I’ve corrected the bits where I pasted the same paragraph in twice – a chunk at the beginning and a paragraph near the end. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Here’s a bit more information:
The Last Word, A Christmas K’Barthan Extra
Clik here to view.
The Last Word
Yes! It’s dark, it’s mid winter and in K’Barth that means only one thing. It’s Arnold The Prophet’s Birthday! The biggest holiday in the Nimmist year. As usual, the Grongles have banned any celebrations and worse, this year, to add insult to injury, they’re going to have a book burning on the Sacred Day but that’s not going to stop Gladys and Ada. Oh no. Here’s the blurb:
When Mrs Ormaloo brings the terrible news to the Turnadot Street Businesswomen’s Association that the Grongles are going to burn some more banned books on the night of Arnold, The Prophet’s Birthday Gladys and Ada decide to take steps. They even enrol some of the punters from their pub to help out.
The books are in a warehouse being kept under guard. Gladys, Ada, Their Trev and the rest of the group embark on a plan of devilish cunning to rescue as many banned books from the flames as they can.
Corporal Crundy is determined not to mess up his first assignment since his promotion. It should be easy. All he has to do is guard some books. Yeh. It should be a piece of cake but somehow that’s not the way it turns out.
Just to recap, this story is about the same length as Night Swimming and available in PDF, Mobi and Epub from Bookfunnel. Later I will add a second half to it and release it as a short story with a proper cover and t’ing rather than this slightly dodgy one what I done! Phnark.
To download your copy, click here
All that remains is to wish you and yours a fabulous New Year. I’m not going to say anything like, ‘Hey 2022 can’t get any worse can it?’ because in my view, that’s just tempting bloody fate. Instead, I’ll just say, here’s hoping we’ve bottomed out and things begin to look up.